


how light works

by orphan_account



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-02 20:18:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12733602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: They're supposed to be together until the end.





	how light works

**Author's Note:**

> I'M SO SORRY I'M GONNA WORK ON MY FOR REAL, SERIOUS BUSINESS WIPS NOW jaeyong is so off-brand for me tbqh

They’re supposed to live to sixty in an apartment with a balcony. Jaehyun smokes and leaves a trail of ashes, so the balcony’s perfect for blowing them away into the sky. The apartment’s supposed to be open to pets because Taeyong likes dogs and Jaehyun thinks the world is too cruel to raise children in. The memory had gone and come back in full force, making Taeyong think he could vomit his heart out onto the marble floor, onto the space between him and Jaehyun that feels wider than a chasm, Taeyong’s knees locked together like he’s standing on the edge of a cliff.

Taeyong lives in a little studio where the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom are all melded together into a single entity. Double bed, window that leads right into the street and doesn’t ever open precisely because of that, no bathtub. Still plenty of space left without having to press one’s limbs against the wall. It’s cruel outside so cuddle up with me where it’s nice.

He does feel close to tears in this moment, staring at that chasm of a marble floor with a glass of champagne in his hand, the condensation dripping down to his fingers, down his wrist. It’s like cold blood and Taeyong hates that cheesy, overwrought thought. It’s overdone, like the soap opera of his wild imagination, glycerin tears.

Someone calls Jaehyun away from his seat. He obliges and the world is set back into motion. Taeyong heaves a sigh.

“What was that?” Johnny asks as Taeyong chugs down his champagne.

“Nothing.”

 

 

He goes home and imagines Jaehyun stepping inside for the first time, hand on the counter to balance himself as he toes off his shoes. It’s those socks that hide inside his shoes, his ankles never touching cloth or fabric. What protrudes demands to be seen. Throat, knees, elbows…? Everything else all buttoned up. Secrecy is a performative act.

The size of the studio is uncommendable. Shrug it off, he will. It’ll do. Home is a performative act, not a location. But what about the kitchen? It’s much too small. No room for a rice cooker, so the rice is bought daily, already cooked and portioned for solo meals. Boiled eggs for breakfast and the coffee’s bought downstairs. When did home stop meaning good meals?

Taeyong would argue, _I’m never here._ Tongue in cheek, Jaehyun would wonder why.

 

 

Taeyong wishes he brought Doyoung home. Doyoung makes going home such a strange, new thing. Exhilarating, not apprehensive. Eager, not secretive. Because Doyoung doesn’t care about what’s inside and every time they do this, Doyoung has something to point out. Manga on the lone shelf, dust on the TV. What else does Taeyong do for fun? Taeyong’s stumped; is he always just asleep on off days?

Jaehyun likes watching movies, all decked out in sweatpants and a ratty t-shirt all the way from high school that still fits him, his toes curling and digging into the cushions of the sofa. He says he likes movies that make him think, that pull some kind of emotion out of him. They rarely watched together, movies reserved for Taeyong’s busy days so Taeyong can come home to Jaehyun’s morose form on the couch and kiss him better. What _does_ Taeyong do for fun? Bodies, maybe. What he can feel with his lips.

They both like to cook, but they eat out so often that the food spoils in the fridge, grows stale or grows mould, a smell that makes Taeyong laugh from how disgusting it is before he throws it away. Cleaning’s fun. Oh, goodness, so _that’s_ what he does for fun…

There’s another gig tonight, another catered event backstage that only gets nibbled at. Doyoung is somewhere orchestrating the whole thing while Taeyong finds himself led everywhere, undressed and dressed and undressed again. He doesn’t need to like the clothes, just wear them. Just keep his body ready to wear them, hence the nibbling.

“Do you want to go later?” Johnny asks. He hands Taeyong his bag of clothes, dressy but undeniably his. “You can go home and rest.”

“Should I?” Taeyong asks.

Johnny shrugs. “If you want to. I can tell Doyoung you won’t be going.” _You look like death_ , is what Johnny means. Maybe not look like. More like Taeyong’s seen death, brushed elbows with it. Jaehyun was seated in the audience, the flashing cameras highlighting his face only briefly.

“I’ll tell him myself,” Taeyong says, then goes into a dressing room to get changed. Doyoung accompanies him home and points out the toothbrush in the bathroom. It’s his sister’s from when she needed a place to stay during her layover and she left it there in a mad rush to the airport. What? It’s true.

“What’s your sister like?” Doyoung asks as he sits on the bed, palm smoothing out the sheets. Taeyong fixes them both some tea then sits on the opposite end of the bed.

“She’s nice,” Taeyong answers. “We have a gap, so she’s really caring towards me.”

“What does she look like? Do you have any pictures?” The last person to ask was Jaehyun, and the request floods Taeyong’s mind with reminders, Jaehyun cooing, teasing—you were so cute as a kid, what happened? He thinks she’s pretty, and Taeyong is happy in her place, that feeling of pride swelling up inside of him like it’s been forced into him and he’s breathing into it, so when Doyoung praises her, too, he beams.

 

 

This is how they meet: mutual admiration. Taeyong thinks Jaehyun’s beautiful, Jaehyun thinks Taeyong’s accomplished. It sounds reasonable and logical. It sounds like, all things held constant, a good thing that keeps them in line and the bills paid. So they meet and bond out of a mutual distate for work—“Pornography but we’re wearing clothes,” Jaehyun says—and fall in love and practically move in though, on paper, they still own their own homes. But of course. It’s logical and practical but no one ever stops to think about how noncommittance is maybe the beginning of the end?

So Taeyong knows better. This time, he’ll move in when he knows they’re ready, he’ll ask when he feels it’s time. It’s okay to expect commitment, Doyoung says. It’s expected to commit, Doyoung means, so stop giving people leeway you’d never give yourself. Maybe Doyoung doesn’t mean that. Maybe Taeyong’s just extrapolating and he’s so far off because he really only has this one learning lesson to bank on, but he does try.

 

 

At another show, Johnny pulls Taeyong aside. “Do you need a break?” Johnny asks slowly, enunciating every word like Taeyong’s head is underwater. Taeyong shakes his head no like he and Johnny share a thought and if he opens his mouth, he’ll drown. “Do you want to talk to him?”

“What would I say?”

Johnny shrugs. “Whatever you want to say.” Get it off your chest, he means. Lay it on his instead. How unfair.

“I don’t want to say anything,” Taeyong insists.

“That’s fine, too.”

 

 

But he can imagine just going up to Jaehyun to say hi, and it feels almost as if Taeyong had done it before and he’s merely remembering that he did. He’d go up and say hi and maybe ask about how he was doing those few months he was in Europe. That’s plan A. Plan A comes with two outcomes: 1) the budding semblance of a friendship; or 2) nothing.

Or maybe not. That’s plan B. Plan B is good and safe but not necessarily ideal, as all contingency plans are.

“I _want_ to talk to him,” Taeyong slurs to Johnny later as explanation, fingers curling into Johnny’s skin for purchase.

Johnny nods. “Uh-huh…”

“I don’t know what to say,” Taeyong continues.

“Maybe that means you don’t have to talk to him at all,” Johnny muses.

Taeyong’s brows knit together and he feels miserable. “But I want to talk to him,” he insists.

“We can do that,” Johnny offers, lifting up his beer bottle to Jaehyun’s direction.

“What would I say?” Taeyong asks.

“We talked about this already.” About five hours ago, when Taeyong was in the process of becoming someone else. Generally speaking, whatever Taeyong is at the moment is terrified of Jaehyun and what can you say to something that petrifies you other than I’m sorry please don’t hurt me?

Taeyong frowns into his glass and Johnny watches him, concerned but bored.

“He’s coming here,” Johnny says. “If you have something to say, say it now.”

Jaehyun passes by, rushing on his way out to the door. If he’s seen Taeyong, he acts like he hasn’t, all frantic and occupied. The moment’s gone and Taeyong lets out a breath. 

**Author's Note:**

> please be nice I wrote this when I was very emotional TT


End file.
